1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method, and more particularly to an image data processing method to capture still images while capturing motion images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image capturing technology developed from capturing still images to capturing motion images. Capturing and recording of conventional motion images is performed by successively capturing a plurality of frames, i.e., still images. If a user wants to capture some frames of motion images or compare or analyze still images, the convention image capture method captures a plurality of frames of the motion images. Still images can be output in the form of a picture and can be edited by software.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional motion image file. Typically, the conventional motion image file is made up of a plurality of frames of serially connected still images f1˜fn. The still images f1˜fn are captured with VGA resolution, thus, the resolution of the still images f1˜fn is 640×480 pixels. A first motion image file is made up of serially connected still images f1˜fn with the resolution of 640×480 pixels. If a still image capture operation is applied to the first motion image file, the resolution of the captured still image can only be as high as 640×480 pixels due to the resolution of the original still images f1˜fn, thus possibly not meeting a users demand.
A still image capture device that captures still images while capturing motion images is disclosed in U.S. Pub. No. 200410109067A1. The image capture device copies the last still image output by the image capture element inside of the image capture device, and the last still image is filled to compensate the lost part of the motion image file. Thus, the quality of smooth showing is minimally influenced when playing the motion image file. However, if the capturing time of the still image capture operation is too long, i.e., the interrupt time of capturing the motion images may be too long, and accordingly the motion image data may be loss. Thus, when viewing the motion image data, the quality of smooth showing would be negatively affected as too many same still images would be used as compensation for the motion image data. Therefore, the above described capturing method, given the examples of the motion image file, results in a poorer smooth showing quality. As such, an image processing method capable of improving the quality of the motion image file is desirable.